“However big or small your garden is, if you allow nature to touch your spirit, gardening will bring returns of peace, satisfaction, and well-being for as long as you continue to wander the garden path.” – Norman Hansen
Lately our kindergarten tamariki have expressed a keen interest in gardening. They have demonstrated a real sense of kaitiaki through their collaborative care and responsibility of our vegetable crops. To extend on this learning we are carrying out a seed inquiry, where the tamariki have had the opportunity to examine a range of different seeds, looking at the differences and similarities, exploring their shape, size and texture.
When examining the radish seeds,
Peyton noticed that they are “crunchy, hard and little.”
Oakley commented “it’s really little, it’s rough.”
When we examined the bean seeds, “Kura noticed that ‘it’s soft.”
JJ stated ‘they are so soft.”
While Oakley said “it’s a big one.”
When looking at the beetroot seeds, Scout noticed that “they’re soft, they’re smooth.”
While Kura added “it’s even softer and little.”
When examining the pea seed, Scout commented “it’s like a dried pea, like the princess and the pea."
Layla added “they are really hard."
When we examined the carrot seeds, Peyton noticed that “they’re really really small and crunchy.”
Siaki stated “they’re crunchy, they’re too hard to pick up.”
While Oakley added "the carrot seeds are small, I can’t pick them up.”
The tamariki also created miniature glass houses, using muffin trays lined with damp paper towels. They carefully scattered the seeds into each hole and covered them in cling film.
They will monitor the seeds each day, documenting their daily findings, to determine which seeds will sprout first and how long each seed takes to grow.
The tamariki are waiting with anticipation to see which ones will begin to grow first.
Scientific concepts are extended within this experience, as the tamariki develop their knowledge and understanding of a plant’s life cycle.
Sorting/categorizing skills and fine motor skills are also fostered as the tamariki explore with picking up the seeds using the tweezers and sorting them into groups.
“Te rangahau me te matauranga | Making sense of their worlds by generating and refining working theories”
(Te Whariki, 2017).
